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PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



£0e (Rogaf Tfyistoticai Society 

London, Junk i6th, 1SS1. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 

BY 

ISAAC N. ARNOLD, F.R.H.S. 

—«■♦-♦.♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦•♦.♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦^■— 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



A PAPER 

READ BEFORE 

The Royal Historical Society, 

London, Tune [6th, i88i. 



„ 

Hox. ISAAC N. ARM) I. I). 

PRESIDENT OF I HI CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY, \M> HONORARY FELLOW 
.'I I HE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY, LONDON. 




REPRINTED 1 ROM 

Transa< riONS "i nil- Royal Histork vl Society." 

Vol. X. 



CHICAGO: 
FERG LIS PRINTING COM PA N Y 
[883. 



£H7 

IS 



OFFICERS AND COUNCIL MAY, 1881. 
*gte$ibent. 

I'm Right Honorable Lord ^.berdare, l.k.s. 

His Grace the Duke of Westminster, K.G. 
I'm Right Hon. the Earl of Rosebery. 
Right Hon. Lord de Lisle and Dudley. 
I'm Right Hon. Lord Selborne. 
Sir John Lubbock, Bart., MR, D.C.L. 
James Heywood, Esq., F.R.S. 
George Harris, Esq., LL.D., I'M. A. 
Cornelius Walford, Esq., I'M. A. 

gottttctf. 

Gustavus George Zerffi, Esq., Ph.D., F.R.S.L., Chairman. 
Sir Charlks Farquhar Shand, I.I.D.. Vice- Chair man. 
Right Hon. Earl Ferrers. 
I'm-: Right Hon. Lord RonAld Gower. 
John H. Chapman, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. 
Hyde Clark, Esq., D.C.L. 
Rev. J. \\. Cro.mrik, F.G.S., F.L.S. 
J. Baker Greene, Esq., M.B., LL.B. 
Henry II. Howorth, Esq., F.S.A. 
Alderman Hurst. 
( ' Ai'T.wx E. ('. Johns. >\. 
Tito Pagliardini, Esq. 
1-'. K. |. Sm \ 1. 1\, Esq. 
Rev. Robinson Thornton, l>.l>. (Oxon). 
Bryce McMurdo Wright, Esq., F.R.G.S. 
John Russell, Esq. 

Xxntorarn Secretary awb treasurer. 

Wm. Herbage, Esq., F.S.S., London and South- Western Bank, 
7. Fenchurch Street, London, E.C. 

-£J6rartatt. 

W. S. W. \'\i \. Esq., M.A.. F.R.S.L., Society's Rooms, 22, Albe 
marie Street, W. 



Among the Honorary Fellows of the Society are the following : 
Hon. George Bancroft, Washington, U.S.A. 
Hon. Charles H. Bell, President of the New Hampshire Historical 

Society, Exeter, New Hampshire. 
James Anthony Fronde, Esq., LL.D., London. 
His Excellency General Grant, Ex-President of the United States. 
' Hon. Horatio Gates Jones, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
The Right-Rev. Bishop Kip, San Francisco. 
Professor H. W. Longfellow, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 
Frederic de Peyster, Esq., President of the Hist. Soc. of New York. 
Very Rev. Dean Stanley, D.D., London. 
Townsend Ward, Esq., Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
Hon. M. P. Wilder, Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 

Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, LL.D.. President of the Historical So- 
ciety of Massachusetts. 
Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, President Hist. Soc. of Chicago, U.S.A. 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



The Royal Historical Society. 



On the evening' of the 16th of June, 1 88 1 , the Society, 
and a large number of invited guests, met at the Society's 
Rooms, No. 22 Albemarle Street, London. 

The chairman, Mr. Alderman Hurst, Ex-Mayor of Bed- 
ford, in introducing Mr. Arnold to the Society said that the 
occasion was the more interesting to him from the fact that 
the first emigrants to America were natives of his own part 
of the country, Bedfordshire and the neighboring counties. 
It gave him. great pleasure to see among them that evening 
a member of the Society from the distant shores of America, 
and in the name of the Society he gave him hearty welcome. 
They all knew and admired the great man of whom they 
were about to hear, and the paper would prove doubly 
interesting, coming as it did from one of his fellow-country- 
men and one who had known and been associated in political 
duties with Lincoln. 

Mr. Arnold then read the following paper upon Mr. 
Lincoln : 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
THE noblest inheritance we, Americans, derive from 
our British ancestors is the memory and example of the 
great and good men who adorn your history. They are as 
much appreciated and honored on our side of the Atlantic 
as on this. In giving to the English-speaking world Wash- 
ington and Lincoln we think we repay, in large part, our 
obligation. Their preeminence in American history is 
recognized, and the republic, which the one founded and the 
other preserved^ has already crowned them as models for her 
children. 

In the annals of almost every great nation some nanus 
appear standing out clear and prominent, names of those 
who have influenced or controlled the great events which 
make up history. Such were Wallace and Bruce in Scot- 
land, Alfred and the Edwards, William the Conqueror, 
Cromwell, Pitt, Nelson, and Wellington in England, and 
such in a still greater degree were Washington and Lincoln. 
I am here, from near his home, with the hope that I 
may, to some extent, aid you in forming a just and true 
estimate of Abraham Lincoln. I knew him, somewhat inti- 
mately, in private and public life for more than twenty 
years. We practised law at the same bar, and during his 
administration, I was a member of Congress, seeing him 
and conferring with him often, and, therefore, I may hope, 
I trust without vanity that I shall be able to contribute 
something of value in enabling you to judge of him. We 
in America, as well as you in the old world, believe that 



'•blood will tell"; that it is a great blessing to have had an 
honorable and worthy ancestry. We believe that moral 
principle, physical and intellectual vigor in the forefathers 
are qualities likely to be manifested in the descendants. 
Fools are not the fathers or mothers of great men. I claim 
for Lincoln, humble as was the station to which he was 
born, and rude and rough as were his early surroundings, 
that he had such ancestors. I mean that his father and 
mother, his grandfather and grandmother, and still further 
back, however humble and rugged their condition, were 
physically and mentally strong, vigorous men and women; 
hardy and successful pioneers on the frontier of American 
civilization. They were among the early settlers in Virginia, 
Kentucky, and Illinois, and knew how to take care of them- 
selves in the midst of difficulties and perils; how to live 
and succeed where the weak would perish. These ances- 
tors of Lincoln, for several generations, kept on the very- 
crest of the wave of Western settlements — on the frontier, 
where the struggle for life was hard and the strong alone 
survived. 

His grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, and his father, 
Thomas, were born in Rockingham County, Virginia. 

About 1 78 1, while his father was still a lad, his grand- 
father's family emigrated to Kentucky, and was a contem- 
porary with Daniel Boone, the celebrated Indian fighter and 
early hero of that State. This, a then wild and wooded 
territory, was the scene of those fierce and desperate con- 
flicts between the settlers and the Indians which gave it the 
name of "The dark and bloody ground." 

When Thomas Lincoln, the father of the President, was 
six years old, his father (Abraham, the grandfather of the 
President) was shot and instantly killed by an Indian. The 
boy and his father were at work in the corn-field, near their 
log-cabin home. Mordecai, the elder brother of the lad, at 
work not far away, witnessed the attack. He saw his father 
fall, and ran to the cabin, seized his ready-loaded rifle, and 
springing to the loop-hole cut through the logs, he saw the 



Indian, who had seized the boy, carrying him away. Rais- 
ing his rifle and aiming at a silver medal, conspicuous on 
the breast of the Indian, lie instantly fired. The Indian 
fell, and the lad, springing to his feet, ran to the open arms 
of his mother at the cabin-door. Amidst such scenes, the 
Lincoln family naturally produced rude, rough, hardy, and 
fearless men, familiar with wood-craft; men who could meet 
the extremes of exposure and fatigue, who knew how to 
find food and shelter in the forest; men of great powers of 
endurance — brave and self-reliant, true and faithful to their 
friends, and dangerous to their enemies. Men with minds 
to conceive ami hands to execute bold enterprises. 

It is a curious fact that the grandfather, Abraham Lin- 
coln, is noted on the surveys of Daniel Boone as having 
purchased, of the Government, five hundred acres of land. 
Thomas Lincoln, the father, was also the purchaser of gov- 
ernment land, and President Lincoln left, as a part of his 
estate, a quarter-section (one hundred and sixty acres), which 
he had received from the United States, for services ren- 
dered in early life as a volunteer soldier in the Black-Hawk 
Indian war. Thus for three generations the Lincoln family 
were land-owners directly from the Government. 

Such was the lineage and family from which President 
Lincoln sprung. Such was the environment in which his 
character was developed. 

He was born in a log-cabin, in Kentucky, on the 12th 
of February, 1809. 

It will aid you in picturing to yourselves this young man 
and his surroundings, to know that, from boyhood to the 
age of twenty-one, in winter his head was protected from 
the cold by a cap made of the skin of the coon, fox, or prai- 
rie-wolf, and that he often wore the buckskin breeches and 
hunting-shirt of the pioneer. 

He grew up to be a man of majestic stature a\m\ Her- 
culean strength. Had he appeared in England or Nor- 
mandy some G-enturies ago, he would have been the founder 
of some great Baronial family, possibly of a Royal dynasty. 



IO 

He could have wielded, with ease, the two-handed sword of 
Guy, the great Earl of Warwick, or the battle-axe of Rich- 
ard of the Lion-heart. 

HIS EDUCATION AND TRAINING. 

The world is naturally interested in knowing what was 
the education and training which fitted Lincoln for the 
great work which he accomplished. On the extreme fron- 
tier, the means of book-learning was very limited. The 
common free -schools, which now closely follow the heels 
of the pioneer and organized civil government, and prevail 
all over the United States, had not then reached the Far- 
West. An itinerant school-teacher wandered occasionally 
into a settlement, opened a private school for a few months, 
and at such Lincoln attended at different times, in all about 
twelve months. His mother, who was a woman of practical 
good sense, of strong physical organization, of deep relig- 
ious feeling, gentle and self-reliant, taught him to read and 
write. 

Although she died when he was only nine years old, 
she had already laid deep the foundations of his excellence. 
Perfect truthfulness and integrity, love of justice, self-con- 
trol, reverence for God, these constituted the solid basis of 
his character. These were all implanted and carefully culti- 
vated by his mother, and he always spoke of her with the 
deepest respect and the most tender affection. "All that I 
am, or hope to be," said he, when President, "I owe to my 
sainted mother." 

He early manifested the most eager desire to learn, but 
there were no libraries, and few books in the back settle- 
ments in which he lived. Among the stray volumes, which 
he found in the possession of the illiterate families by which 
he was surrounded, were yEsop's fables, Bunyan's Pilgrim's 
Progress, a life of Washington, the poems of Burns, and the 
Bible. To these his reading was confined, and he read 
them over and over again, until they became as familiar 
almost as the alphabet. His memory was marvelous, and I 



I I 



never yet met the man more familiar with the Bible than 
Abraham Lincoln. This was apparent in after-life, both 
from his conversation and writings, as scared}' a speech or 
state paper of his in which illustrations and .illusions from 
the Bible can not be found. 

While a young man, he made for himself, of coarse 
paper, a scrap-book, into which he copied everything which 
particularly pleased him. He found an old English gram- 
mar, which he studied by himself; and he formed, from hi> 
const. mt stud_\- of the Bible, that simple, plain, clear Anglo- 
Saxon style, so effective with the people. lie illustrated 
the maxim that it is better to know thoroughly a few good 
books than to skim over man}-. When fifteen years old, he 
began (with a view of improving himself) to write on vari- 
ous subjects and to practise in making political and other 
speeches. These he made so amusing and attractive that 
his father had to forbid his making them in working-hours, 
for, said he, "when Abe begins to speak, all the hands flock- 
to hear him." His memory was so retentive that he could 
repeat, verbatim, the sermons and political speeches which 
he hearth 

While his days were spent in hard manual labor, and 
lus evenings in stud}-, he grew up strong in bod} - , healthful 
in mind, with no bad habits; n^ stain of intemperance, pro- 
fanity, or vice of any kind. He used neither tobacco nor 
intoxicating drinks, and, thus living, he grew to be six feet 
four inches high, ami a giant in strength. In all athletic 
sports he had no equal. I have heard an old comrade say, 
'die could strike the hardest blow with the woodman's axe, 
and the maul of the rail-splitter, jump higher, run faster 
than any of his fellows, ami there were none, far or near, 
who could lay him on his back." Kind and cordial, he 
earl} - developed so much wit anil humor, such a capacity 
for narrative and story-telling, that In- was everywhere a 
most welcome truest. 



12 



A LAND SURVEYOR. 

Like Washington, he became, in early life, a good prac- 
tical surveyor, and I have, in my library, the identical book 
from which, at eighteen years of age, he studied the art of 
surveying. By his skill and accuracy, and by the neatness 
of his work, lie was sought after by the settlers, to survey 
and fix the boundaries of their farms, and in this way, in 
part, he earned a support while he studied law. In 1837, 
self-taught, he was admitted and licensed, by the Supreme 
Court of Illinois, to practise law. 

A LAWYER. 

It is difficult for me to describe, and, perhaps, more 
difficult for you to conceive the contrast when Lincoln 
began to practise law, between the forms of the adminis- 
tration of justice in Westminster Hall, and in the rude log 
court-houses of Illinois. I recall today what was said a few 
years ago by an Illinois friend, when we visited, for the first 
time, Westminster Abbey, and as we passed into Westmin- 
ster Hall. "This," he exclaimed, "this is the grandest forum 
in the world. Here Fox, Burke, and Sheridan hurled their 
denunciations against Warren Hastings. Here Brougham 
defended Queen Caroline. And this," he went on to repeat, 
in the words of Macauley (words as familiar in America as 
here), "This is the great hall of William Rufus, the hall 
which has resounded with acclamations at the inauguration 
of thirty kings, and which has witnessed the trials of Bacon 
and Somers and Strafford and Charles the First." "And 
yet," I replied, "I have seen justice administered on the 
prairies of Illinois without pomp or ceremony, everything 
simple to rudeness, and yet, when Lincoln and Douglas led 
at the bar, I have seen justice administered by judges as 
pure, aided by advocates as eloquent, if not as learned, as 
any who ever presided, or plead, in Westminster Hall." 

The common-law of England (said to be the perfection 
of human wisdom) was administered in both forums, and 
the decisions of each tribunal were cited as authority in the 



other; both illustrating that reverence for, and obedience 
to, law, which is the glory of the English-speaking rai 

Lincoln was a great lawyer. He sought to convince 
rather by the application of principle than by the citation 
of authorities. On the whole, he was stronger with the 
jury than with the court. I do not know that there has 
ever been, in America, a greater or more successful advo- 
cate before a jury, on the right side, than Abraham Lin- 
coln. He had a marvelous power of conciliating and im- 
pressing everyone in his favor. A stranger entering the 
court, ignorant of the case, and listening a few moments to 
Lincoln, would find himself involuntarily on his side and 
wishing him success. He was a quick and accurate reader 
of character, and seemed to comprehend, almost intuitively, 
the peculiarities ^( those with whom he came in contact. 
His manner was so candid, his methods so direct, so fair, he 
seemed so anxious that truth and justice should prevail, that 
everyone wished him success. He excelled in the statement 
of his case. However complicated, he would disentangle it, 
and present the important and turning-point in a way so 
clear that all could understand. Indeed, his st, dement 
often alone won his cause, rendering argument unnecessary. 
The judges would often stop him by saying, "If that is the 
case, brother Lincoln, we will hear the other side." 

His ability in examining a witness, in bringing out 
clearly the important facts, was only surpassed by his skil- 
ful cross-examinations. lb' could often compel a witness 
to tell the truth, when he meant to lie. He could make a 
jury laugh, and generally weep, at his pleasure. ( )n the 
right side, and when fraud or injustice were to be exposed, 
or innocence vindicated, he rose to the highest range of 
eloquence, antl was irresistible. Hut he must have faith in 
his cause to bring out his full strength. His wit and humor, 
his quaint and homely illustrations, his inexhaustible stores 
of anecdote, always to the point, added greatly to his power 
as a jury-advocate. 

He never misstated evidence or misrepresented his 
opponent's case, but met it fairly and squarely. 



H 

He remained in active practice until his nomination, in 
May, i860, for the presidency. He was employed in the 
leading cases in both the federal and state courts, and had 
a large clientelage, not only in Illinois, but was frequently 
called, on special retainers, to other states. 

AN ILLINOIS POLITICIAN. 

By his eloquence and popularity, he became, early in 
life, the leader of the old Whig party, in Illinois. He served 
as member of the State Legislature, was the candidate of 
his party for speaker, presidential elector, and United States 
senator, and was a member of the lower house of Congress. 

SLAVERY. 

When the- independence of the American republic was 
established, African slavery was tolerated as a local and 
temporary institution. It was in conflict with the moral 
sense, the religious convictions of the people, and the politi- 
cal principles on which the government was founded. 

But having been tolerated, it soon became an organ- 
ized, aggressive power, and, later, it became the master of 
the government. Conscious of its inherent weakness, it 
demanded and obtained additional territory for its expan- 
sion. First, the great Louisiana Territory was purchased, 
then Florida, and then Texas. 

By the repeal, in 1854, of the prohibition of slavery 
north of the line of 36 , 30' of latitude (known in America 
as the "Missouri Compromise"), the slavery question became 
the leading one in American politics, and the absorbing and 
exciting topic of discussion. It shattered into fragments 
the old conservative Whig party, with which Mr. Lincoln 
had, theretofore, acted. It divided the Democratic party, 
and new parties were organized upon issues growing 
directly out of the question of slavery. 

The leader of that portion of the Democratic party 
which continued, for a time, to act with the slavery party, 
was Stephen Arnold Douglas, then representing Illinois in 
the United States Senate. He was a bold, ambitious, able 



15 

man, and had, thus far, been uniformly successful. lie had 
introduced and carried through Congress, against the most 
vehement opposition, the repeal of the law, prohibiting 
slavery, called the Missouri Compromise. 

THE CONTEST BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IX THE 
TERRITORIES. 
The issue having been now distinctly made between 
freedom and the extension of slavery into the territories. 
Lincoln and Douglas, the leaders of the Free-soil and Dem- 
ocratic parties, became more than ever antagonized. The 
conflict between freedom and slavery now became earnest, 
fierce, and violent, beyond all previous political contro- 
versies, and from this time on, Lincoln plead the cause of 
liberty with an energy, ability, and eloquence, which rapidly 
gained for him a national reputation. From this time on, 
through the tremendous struggle, it was he who grasped 
the helm and led his part\- to victory. Conscious of a 
great cause, inspired by a generous love of liberty, and 
animated by the moral sublimit)- of his great theme, he 
proclaimed his determination, ever thereafter, "to speak 
for freedom, ami against slavery, until everywhere the sun 
shall shine, the rain shall fall, and the wind blow upon no 
man who goes forth to unrequited toil." 

Till: LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE. 

The great debate between Lincoln and Douglas, in 
1858, was, unquestionably, both with reference to the ability 
of the speakers and its influence upon opinion and events, 
the most important in American history. I do not think I 
do injustice to others, nor over-estimate their importance. 
when I say that the speeches of Lincoln published, circu- 
lated, and read throughout the Free-States, did more than 
any other agency in creating the public opinion, which pre- 
pared the way for the overthrow of slavery. The speeches 
of John Quincy Adams, and those of Senator Sumner, were 
more learned and scholarly, and those of Lovejoy .inA 
Wendell Phillips were more vehement and impassioned; 



i6 

Senators Seward, Chase, and Hale spoke from a more con- 
spicuous forum, but Lincoln's speeches were as philosophic, 
as able, as earnest as any, and his manner had a simplicity 
and directness, a clearness of illustration, and his language 
a plainness, a vigor, an Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted 
than any other to reach and influence the understanding 
and sentiment of the common people. 

At the time of this memorable discussion, both Lincoln 
and Douglas were in the full maturity of their powers. 
Douglas being forty-five and Lincoln forty-nine years old. 
Douglas had had a long training and experience as a popu- 
lar speaker. On the hustings (stump, as we say in America) 
and in Congress, and especially in the United States Senate, 
he had been accustomed to meet the ablest debaters of his 
State and of the Nation. 

His friends insisted that never, either in conflict with a 
single opponent, or when repelling the assaults of a whole 
party, had he been discomfited. His manner was bold, 
vigorous, and aggressive. He was ready, fertile in resources, 
familiar with political history, strong and severe in denun- 
ciation, and he handled with skill all the weapons of the 
dialectician. His iron will, tireless energy, united with 
physical and moral courage, and great personal magnetism, 
made him a natural leader, and gave him personal popula- 
rity. 

Lincoln was also now a thoroughly- trained speaker. 
He had contended successfully at the bar, in the legislature, 
and before the people, with the ablest men of the West, 
including Douglas, with whom he always rather sought than 
avoided a discussion. But he was a courteous and generous 
opponent, as is illustrated by the following beautiful allusion 
to his rival, made in 1856, in one of their joint debates. 
" Twenty years ago, Judge Douglas and I first became 
acquainted; we were both young then; he a trifle younger 
than I. Even then we were both ambitious, I, perhaps, 
quite as much as he. With me, the race of ambition has 
been a flat failure. With him, it has been a splendid sue- 



17 

cess. His name fills the Nation, and it is not unknown in 
foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence 
he has reached; so reached, that the oppressed of my 
species might have shared with me in the elevation, I would 
rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown 
that ever pressed a monarch's brow." 

We know, and the world knows, that Lincoln did reach 
that high, nay, far higher eminence, and that he did reach 
it in such a way that the "oppressed" did share with him in 
the elevation. 

Such were the champions who, in 1858, wen: to discuss, 
before the voters of Illinois, and with the whole Nation .1- 
spectators, the political questions then pending, and especi- 
ally the vital questions relating to slavery. It was not a 
single combat, but extended through a whole campaign. 

On the return of Douglas from Washington to Illinois, 
in July, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas being candidates for the 
senate, the former challenged his rival to a series of joint 
debates, to be held at the principal towns in the State. 
The challenge was accepted, and it was agreed that each 
discussion should occupy three- hours; that the speakers 
should alternate in the opening and the close — the opening 
speech to occupy one .hour, the reply one hour and a-half, 
and the close half-an-hour. The meetings were held in the 
open air, for no hall could hold the vast crowds which 
attended. 

In addition to the immense mass of hearers, reporters 
from all the principal newspapers in the country attended, 
so that the morning after each debate the speeches were 
published and eagerly read by a large part, perhaps a 
majority of all the voters of the United States. 

The attention of the American people was thus arrested, 
and they watched with intense interest, and devoured ever) 
argument of the champions. 

Each of these great men, I doubt not, at that time 
sincerely believed he was right. Douglas' ardor, while in 
such a conflict, would make him think, for the time being. 
2 



he was right, and I know that Lincoln argued for freedom 
against the extension of slavery with the most profound 
conviction that on the result hung the fate of his country. 
Lincoln had two advantages over Douglas; he had the best 
side of the question, and the best temper. He was always 
good-humored, always had an apt story for illustration, 
while Douglas sometimes, when hard pressed, was irritable. 

Douglas carried away the most popular applause, but 
Lincoln made the deeper and more lasting impression. 
Douglas did not disdain an immediate ad captandnm 
triumph, while Lincoln aimed at permanent conviction. 
Sometimes when Lincoln's friends urged him to raise a 
storm of applause (which he could always do by his happy 
illustrations and amusing stories), he refused, saying the 
occasion was too serious, the issue too grave. "I do not 
seek applause," said he, "nor to amuse the people, I want 
to convince them." 

It was often observed, during this canvass, that while 
Douglas was sometimes greeted with the loudest cheers 
when Lincoln closed, the people seemed solemn and seri- 
ous, and could be heard all through the crowd, gravely and 
anxiously discussing the topics on which he had been 
speaking. 

Douglas secured the immediate object of the struggle,, 
but the manly bearing, the vigorous logic, the honesty and. 
sincerity, the great intellectual powers exhibited by Mr. 
Lincoln, prepared the way, and two years later, secured 
his nomination and election to the presidency. It is a 
touching incident, illustrating the patriotism of both these 
statesmen, that, widely as they differed, and keen as had 
been their rivalry, just as soon as the life of the Republic 
was menaced by treason, they joined hands to shield and 
save the country they loved. 

The echo and the prophecy of this great debate was 
heard, and inspired hope in the far- oft" cotton and rice- 
fields of the South. The toiling blacks, to use the words- 
of Whittier, began hopefully to pray: 



"We pray de Lord. Ik- gib us signs 
Dat some day we l>c free, 
lie Xorf wind tell it to de pines, 
I )e wild duck to de sea. 

■• We tiidc it when de church-bell ring, 

We dream it in de dream, 

I >e rice-bird mean it when he sing, 

De eagle when he scream." 

THE COOPER-INSTITUTE SPEECH. 

In February, i860, Mr. Lincoln was called to address 
the people of New York, and speaking to a vast audience 
at the Cooper Institute (the Exeter Hall of the United 
States), the poet Bryant presiding, he made, perhaps, the 
imost learned, logical, and exhaustive speech to be found 
in American anti-slavery literature. The question was, the 
power of the National Government to exclude slavery from 
the territories. The orator from the prairies, the morning 
after this speech, awoke to find himself famous. 

He closed with these words, "Let us have faith th.it 
right makes might, and in that faith let us, t<> the cn^l, do 
oui duty as we understand it." 

This address was the carefully-finished product of net 
an orator and statesman only, but also of an accurate stu- 
dent of American history. It confirmed and elevated the 
reputation he had already acquired in the Douglas debates, 
and caused his nomination and election to the presidency. 

If time permitted, I would like to follow Mr. Lincoln, 
step by step, to enumerate his measures one after another, 
until, by prudence and courage, and matchless statesman- 
ship, he led the loyal people of the republic to the final 
and complete overthrow of slavery and tin- restoration oi 
the L T nion. 

from the time he left his humble home in Illinois, to 
assume the responsibilities o( power, the politic. il horizon 
black with treason and rebellion, the terrific thunder clouds, 
— the tempest which had been gathering au^ growing more 
black and threatening for years, now ready to explode, 



20 

and on, through long years of bloody war, down to his final 
triumph and death — what a drama! His eventful life termi- 
nated by his tragic death, has it not the dramatic unities 
and the awful ending of the Old Greek tragedy? 

HIS FAREWELL TO HIS NEIGHBORS. 

I know of nothing in history more pathetic than the 
scene when he bade good-bye to his old friends and neigh- 
bors. Conscious of the difficulties and dangers before him, 
difficulties which seemed almost insurmountable, with a sad- 
ness as though a presentiment that he should return no 
more was pressing upon him, but with a deep religious trust 
which was characteristic, on the platform of the rail-car- 
riage which was to bear him away to the Capital, he paused 
and said, "No one can realize the sadness I feel at this part- 
ing. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century. 
Here my children were born, and here one of them lies 
buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. I go 
to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved 
upon any other man since the days of Washington. He 
never would have succeeded but for the aid of Divine Pro- 
vidence upon which, at all times, he relied. * * 
I hope you, my dear friends, will all pray that I may receive 
that Divine assistance, without which I can not succeed, but 
with which success is certain." 

And as he waved his hand in farewell to the old home, 
to which he was never to return, he heard the response 
from many old friends, "God bless and keep you." "God 
protect you from all traitors." His neighbors "sorrowing 
most of all," for the fear "that they should see his face no 
more." 

HIS INAUGURAL AND APPEAL FOR PEACE. 

In his inaugural address, spoken in the open air, and 
from the eastern portico of the capitol, and heard by thrice 
ten thousand people, on the very verge of civil war, he 
made a most earnest appeal for peace. He gave the most 



2 I 

solemn assurance, that "the property, peace, and security of 
no portion of the Republic should be endangered by his 
administration." But he declared with firmness, that the 

union of the States must be "perpetual," and that he should 
"execute the laws faithfully in every State." "In doing 
this," said he, "there need be no bloodshed nor violence, 
nor shall there be, unless forced upon the National Au- 
thority." In regard to the difficulties which thus divided 
the people, he appealed to all to abstain from precipitate 
action, assuring them that intelligence, patriotism, and a 
firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken the 
Republic, "were competent to adjust, in the best way, all 
existing troubles." 

His closing appeal against civil war was most touch- 
ing. "In your hands," said he, and his voice for the first 
time faltered, "In your hands, and not in mine, are the 
momentous issues of civil war." :: ' "You can 

have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors." 
"I am," continued he, "loth to close, we are not 
enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies, though 
passion may strain, — it must not break the bonds of affec- 
tion." 

The answer to these appeals was the attack upon Fort 
Sumpter, and immediately broke loose all the maddening 
passions which riot in blood and carnage and civil war. 

I know not how I can better picture and illustrate the 
condition of affairs and of public feeling at that time, than 
by narrating two or three incidents. 

DOUGLAS' PROPHECY, JANUARY I, [86l. 

In January, 1861, Senator Douglas, then lately a candi- 
date for the presidency, with Mrs. Douglas, one of the mosl 
beautiful and fascinating women in America, a relative ol 
Mrs. Madison, occupied at Washington a house in a most 
magnificent block of dwellings, called the "Minnesota 
Block." On New -Year's- day, [861, Gen. Charles Stewart 
of New York, from whose lips I write an account ol the 
incident, says: 



22 

"I was making a New-Year's-call on Senator Douglas; 
after some conversation, I asked him: 

"'What will be the result, Senator, of the efforts of 
Jefferson Davis and his associates to divide the Union ?' 
We were," said Stewart, "sitting on the sofa together when 
I asked the question. Douglas rose, walked rapidly up 
and down the room for a moment, and then pausing, he 
exclaimed, with deep feeling and excitement: 

"'The Cotton States are making an effort to draw in 
the Border States to their schemes of Secession, and I am 
but too fearful they will succeed. If they do, there will be 
the most fearful civil war the world has ever seen, lasting 
for years.' 

"Pausing a moment, he looked like one inspired, while 
he proceeded: 'Virginia, over yonder, across the Potomac,' 
pointing toward Arlington, 'will become a charnel-house — 
but in the end the Union will triumph. They will try,' he 
continued, 'to get possession of this Capital, to give them 
prestige abroad, but in that effort they will never succeed; 
the North will rise en masse to defend it. But Washington 
will become a city of hospitals, the churches will be used 
for the sick and wounded. This house,' he continued, 'the 
Minnesota Block will be devoted to that purpose before the 
end of the war." " 

Every word he said was literally fulfilled — all the 
churches nearly were used for the wounded, and the Min- 
nesota Block, and the very room in which this declaration 
was made, became the "Douglas Hospital." 

"'What justification for all this?' said Stewart. 

"'There is no justification,' replied Douglas. 

"T will go as far as the constitution will permit to 
maintain their just rights. But,' said he, rising upon his 
feet and raising his arm, 'if the Southern States attempt 
to secede, I am in favor of their having just so many slaves, 
and just so much slave territory as they can hold at the 
point of the bayonet, and no more.' " 



- .1 

Will Till NORTH FIGHT ? 

Man_\' Southern leaders believed there would be no 
serious war, and labored industriously to impress this idea 
<>n the Southern people. 

Benjamin F. Butler, who, as a delegate from Massachu- 
setts to the Charlestown Convention, had voted many times 
for Breckenridge, the extreme Southern candidate for presi- 
dent, came to Washington in the winter of i860 i, to in- 
quire of Ids old associates what the)- meant by their threats. 

•" We mean," replied the)-, "we mean Separation — a 
Southern Confederacy. We will have our independence, ,1 
Southern government —with no discordant elements." 

"Are you prepared for war?" said Butler, coolly. 

"Oh,. there will be no war; the North won't fight." 

"The North re/'// fight," said Butler, "the North will 
send the last man and expend the last dollar to maintain the 
( rovernment." 

"But," replied Butler's Southern friends, "tin- North 
can't fight — we have too many allies there." 

"You have friends," responded Butler, "in the North, 
who will stand by you so long as you fight your battles in 
the Union, but the moment you fire on the flag, the North 
will be a unit against you." "And," Butler continued, "you 
ma\ - be assured if war comes, slavery ends." 

Till'. SPECIAL SESSION OF CONGRESS, JULY, [86l. 

On the brink of this civil war, the President summoned 
Congress to meet on the 4th of July, 1861, the anniversary 
•of our Independence. Seven states had already seceded, 
were in open revolt, and the chairs of their representatives, 
in both houses of Congress, ware vacant. It needed but a 
glance at these so numerous vacant seats to realize the 
extent of the defection, the gravity of the situation, and 
the magnitude of the impending struggle. The old pro- 
slavery leaders were absent. Some in the rebel govern- 
ment, set up at Richmond, and others marshalling troops 



^4 

in the field. Hostile armies were gathering, and from the 
dome of the Capitol, across the Potomac, and on toward 
Fairfax, in Virginia, could be seen the Confederate flag. 

Ereckenridge, late the Southern candidate for president, 
now Senator from Kentucky, and soon to lead a rebel army, 
still lingered in the Senate. Like Cataline among the 
Roman Senators, he was regarded with aversion and dis- 
trust. Gloomy and perhaps sorrowful, he said, "I can only 
look with sadness on the melancholy drama that is being 
enacted.'" 

Pardon the digression, while I relate an incident which 
occurred in the Senate at this special session. 

Senator Baker of Oregon was making a brilliant and 
impassioned reply to a speech of Breckenridge, in which he 
denounced the Kentucky senator, for giving aid and encour- 
agement to the enemy by his speeches. At length he 
paused, and turning toward Breckenridge, and fixing his 
eye upon him, he asked, "What would have been thought 
if. after the battle of Cannae, a Roman senator had risen 
amidst the conscript Fathers, and denounced the war, and 
opposed all measures for its succes- 

Baker paused, and every eye in the Senate and in the 
crowded galleries was fixed upon the almost solitary sena- 
tor from Kentucky. Fessenden broke the painful silence 
by exclaiming, in low deep tones, which gave expression to 
the thrill of indignation, which ran through the hall, "He 
would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock."' 

Congress manifested its sense of the gravity of the 
situation by authorizing a loan of two hundred and fifty 
millions of dollars, and empowering the President to call 
into the field five hundred thousand men, and as many 
more as he might deem necessary. 

SURRENDER OF MASON AND SLIDELL. 

act of the British Government, since the "stamp 
act' of the Revolution, has ever excited such intense feel- 
ing of hostility toward Great Britain, as her haughty 



demand for the surrender of Mason and Slidell. It 
required nerve in the President to stem the storm of popu- 
lar feeling, and yield to that demand, and it was, for a 
time, the most unpopular act of his administration. But 
when the excitement of the day had passed, it was 
approved by the sober judgment of the Nation. 

Prince Albert is kindly and gratefully remembered in 
America, where it is believed that his action, in modify- 
ing- the terms of that demand, probably saved the United 
States and Great Britain from the horrors of war. 

LINCOLN AND THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 

When in June, 1858, at his home in Springfield, Mr. 
Lincoln startled the people with the declaration, " This 
government can not endure, permanently, half-slave and 
half-free," and when, at the close of his speech, to those 
who were laboring for the ultimate extinction of slavery, 
he exclaimed, with the voice of a prophet, "We shall not 
fail, if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise councils may 
accelerate, or mistakes delay, but sooner or later the vic- 
tory is sure to come;" he anticipated success through years 
of discussion, and final triumph through peaceful and con- 
stitutional means by the ballot. He did not forsee nor 
even dream (unless in those dim mysterious shadows, which 
sometimes startle by half- revealing the future) his own 
elevation to the presidency. He did not then suspect that 
he had been appointed by God, and should be choosen by 
the people to proclaim the emancipation of a race, and to 
save his country. He did not forsee that slavery was 
soon to be destroyed amidst the flames of war which itself 
kindled. 

HIS MODERATION. 

He entered upon his administration with the single pur- 
pose of maintaining national unity, and many reproached 
and denounced him for the slowness <>\ his anti-slavery 
measures. The first ^i the series was the abolition of sla- 



26 

very at the National Capital. This act gave freedom to 
three thousand slaves, with compensation to their loyal 
masters. Contemporaneous with this was an act confer- 
ring freedom upon all colored soldiers who should serve in 
the Union armies and upon their families. The next was 
an act, which I had the honor to introduce, prohibiting 
slavery in all the territories, and wherever the National 
Government had jurisdiction. But the great, the decisive 
act of his administration, was the "Emancipation Procla- 
mation." 

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 

The President had urged with the utmost earnestness 
on the loyal slave-holders of the Border States, gradual and 
compensated emancipation, but in vain. He clearly saw, 
all saw, that the slaves, as used by the confederates, were a 
vast power, contributing immensely to their ability to carry 
on the war, and that by declaring their freedom, he would 
convert millions of freedmen into active friends and allies 
of the Union. The people knew that he was deliberating 
upon the question of issuing this Emancipation Proclama- 
tion. At this crisis, the Union men of the Border States 
made an appeal to him to withhold the edict, and suffer 
slavery to survive. 

They selected John J. Crittenden, a venerable and elo- 
quent man, and their ablest statesman, to make, on the floor 
of Congress, a public appeal to the President, to withhold 
the proclamation. Mr. Crittenden had been governor of 
Kentucky, her senator in Congress, attorney-general of the 
United States, and now, in his old age, covered with honors, 
he accepted, like John Ouincy Adams, a seat in Congress, 
that in this crisis he might help to save his country. 

He was a sincere Union man, but believed it unwise to 
disturb slavery. In his speech, he made a most eloquent 
and touching appeal from a Kentuckian to a Kentuckian. 
He said, among other things, "There is a niche, near to that 
of Washington, to him who shall save his country. If Mr. 



-7 

Lincoln will step into that niche, the founder and the pre- 
server of the Republic shall stand side by side." 
Owen Lovejoy, the brother of Elijah 1'. Lovejoy, who had 

been mobbed and murdered, because he would not surren 
tlei- the liberty of the press, replied to Crittenden. After 
his brother's murder, kneeling upon the green sod which 
covered that brother's grave, he had taken a solemn vow 
of eternal war upon slavery. Ever after, like Peter the 
Hermit, with a heart of fire and a tongue of lightning, he 
had q;one forth, preaching his crusade against slavery. At 
length, in his reply, turning to Crittenden, he said, "The 
gentleman from Kentucky says he has a niche for Abraham 
Lincoln, where is it?" 

Crittenden pointed toward Heaven. 

Lovejoy continuing said, "He points upward, but, sir! 
if the President follows the counsel of that gentleman, and 
becomes the perpetuator of slavery, he should point down- 
ward, to some dungeon in the temple of Moloch, who feeds 
on human blood, and where are forged chains for human 
limbs; in the recesses of whose temple woman is scourged 
and man tortured, and outside the walls are lying dogs, 
gorged with human flesh, as Byron describes them lying 
around the walls of Stambool." "That," said Lovejoy, "is 
a suitable place for the statue of him who would perpetuate 
slavery." 

"I, too," said he, "have a temple for Abraham Lincoln, 
but it is in freedom's holy fane, * * not surrounded 
by slave-fetters and chains, but with the symbols of free- 
dom—not dark with bondage, but radiant with the light ol 
liberty. In that niche he shall stand proudly, nobly, glori- 
ously, with broken chains and slaves' whips beneath his feet. 
That is a fame worth living for, aye, more, it is a 
fame worth dying for, though that death led through Geth- 
scmene and the agony of the accursed tire-. 

"It is said," continued he, "that Wilberforce went up to 
the judgment seat with the broken chains of eight hundred 
thousand slaves! Let Lincoln make himself the Liberator, 



28 

and his name shall be enrolled, not only in this earthly 
temple, but it shall be traced on the living stones of that 
temple which is reared amid the thrones of Heaven." 

Lovejoy's prophecy has been fulfilled — in this world — 
you see the statues to Lincoln, with broken chains at his 
feet, rising all over the world, and — in that other world — 
few will doubt that the prophecy has been realized. 

In September, 1862, after the Confederates, by their 
defeat at the great battle of Antietam, had been driven 
back from Maryland and Pennsylvania, Lincoln issued the 
Proclamation. It is a fact, illustrating his character, and 
showing that there was in him what many would call a 
tinge of superstition, that he declared to Secretary Chase 
that he had made a solemn vow to God, saying, "if Gen- 
eral Lee is driven back from Pennsylvania, I will crown the 
result with the declaration of FREEDOM TO THE SLAVE." 
The final Proclamation was issued on the first of January, 
1863. In obedience to an American custom, he had been 
receiving calls on that New-Year's-day, and, for hours, shak- 
ing hands. As the paper was brought to him by the Secre- 
tary of State to be signed, he said, "Mr. Seward, I have been 
shaking hands all day, and my right hand is almost para- 
lyzed. If my name ever gets into history, it will be for this 
act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when 
I sign the proclamation, those who examine the document 
hereafter, will say, "he hesitated." 

Then resting his arm a moment, he turned to the table, 
took up the pen, and slowly and firmly wrote Abraham Lin- 
coln. He smiled as, handing the paper to Mr. Seward, he 
said, "that will do." 

From this day, to its final triumph, the tide of victory 
seemed to set more and more in favor of the Union cause. 
The capture of Vicksburg, the victory of Gettysburg, Chat- 
tanooga, Chickamauga, Lookout-Mountain, Missionary Ridge, 
Sheridan's brilliant campaign in the Valley of the Shenan- 
doah; Thomas' decisive victory at Nashville; Sherman's 
march through the Confederacy to the sea; the capture of 



2 9 

Fort McAllister; the sinking of the Alabama; the taking of 
Mobile by Farragut; the occupation of Columbus, Charles- 
ton, Savannah; the evacuation of Petersburg and Rich- 
mond; the surrender of Lee to Grant; the taking of Jeffer- 
son Davis a prisoner; the triumph everywhere of the National 
Arms; such were the events which followed (though with 
delays and bloodshed) the "Proclamation of Emancipation." 

THE AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION. 

Meanwhile Lincoln had been triumphantly reelected, 
Congress had, as before stated, abolished slavery at the 
Capital, prohibited it in all the territories, declared all 
negro soldiers in the Union armies and their families free, 
and had repealed all laws which sanctioned or recognized 
slavery, and the President had crowned and consummated 
all by the proclamation of emancipation. One thing alone 
remained to perfect, confirm, and make everlastingly per- 
manent these measures, -and this was to embody in the Con- 
stitution itself the prohibition of slavery everywhere within 
the Republic. 

To change the organic law, required the adoption by a 
two-thirds' vote of a joint resolution by Congress, and that 
this should be submitted to and ratified by three-fourths of 
the States. 

The President, in his annual message and in personal 
interviews with members of Congress, urged the passage . >i 
such resolution. To test the strength of the measure, in the 
House of Representatives, I had the honor, in February, 
1X64, to introduce the following resolution: 

"Resolved, That the Constitution should be so amended 
as to abolish slavery in the United States wherever it now 
exists, and to prohibit its existence in every part thereof 
forever" (Cong. Globe, vol. 50, p. 659). This was adopted 
by a decided vote, and was the first resolution ever passed 
by Congress in favor of the entire abolition of slavery. 
Put, although it received a majority, it did not receive a 
majority of two-thirds. 



SO 

The debates on the Constitutional Amendment (perhaps 
the greatest in our Congressional history, certainly the most 
important since the adoption of the Constitution) ran through 
two sessions of Congress. Charles Sumner, the learned sen- 
ator from Massachusetts, brought to the discussion in the 
Senate his ample stores of historical illustration, quoting 
largely in its favor from the historians, poets, and states- 
men of the past. 

The resolution was adopted in the Senate by the large 
vote of ayes, 38, noes, 6. 

In the lower House, at the first session, it failed to 
obtain a two -third vote, and, on a motion to reconsider, 
went over to the next session. 

Mr. Lincoln again earnestly urged its adoption, and in 

a letter to Illinois friends, he said, "The signs look better. 

Peace does not look so distant as it did. I hope 

it will come soon, and come to stay, and so come as to be 

worth keeping in all future time." 

I recall very vividly my New-Year's-call upon the Presi- 
dent, January, 1864. I said: 

"I hope, Mr. President, one year from today I may 
have the pleasure of congratulating you on the occurrence 
of three events which now seem probable." 

"What are they?" inquired he. 

"1. That the rebellion may be entirely crushed. 

"2. That the Constitutional Amendment, abolishing and 
prohibiting slavery, may have been adopted. 

"3. And that Abraham Lincoln may have been re- 
elected President." 

"I think," replied he, with a smile, "I would be glad to 
accept the first two as a compromise." 

General Grant, in a letter, remarkable for that clear 
good-sense and practical judgment for which he is distin- 
guished, condensed into a single sentence the political argu- 
ment in favor of the Constitutional Amendment, "The North 
and South," said he, "can never live at peace with each other 
except as one nation and that without slavery? 



GARFIELD S SPEECH. 

I would be glad to quote from this great debate, but 
must confine myself to a brief extract from the speech of 
the present President, then a member of the House. He 
began by saying: 

"Mr. Speaker, we shall never know why slaver)' dies so 
hard in this Republic and in this Hall, until we know why 
sin outlives disaster and Satan is immortal.'' 
"How well do I remember," he continued, "the history of 
that distinguished predecessor of mine, Joshua R. Giddings, 
lately gone to his rest, who, with his forlorn hope of faith- 
ful men, took his life in his hands and, in the name of jus- 
tice, protested against the great crime, and who stood 
bravely in his place until his white locks, like the plume of 
Henry of Navarre, marked where the battle of freedom 
raged fiercest." "In its mad arrogance, slavery 

lifted its hand against the Union, and since that fatal daw 
it has been a fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth." 

Up to the last roll-call, on the question of the passage 
of the resolution, we were uncertain and anxious about the 
result. We needed Democratic votes. We knew we should 
get some, but whether enough to carry the measure, none 
could surely tell. 

As the clerk called the names of members, so perfect 
was the silence that the sound of a hundred pencils keeping 
tall}- could be heard through the Hall. 

Finally, when the call was completed, and the speaker 
announced that the Resolution was adopted, the result was 
received by an uncontrollable burst of enthusiasm. Mem- 
bers and spectators (especially the galleries, which were 
crowded with convalescent soldiers) shouted and cheered, 
and before the speaker could obtain quiet, the roar of artil- 
lery on Capitol Hill proclaimed to the City of Washington 
the passage of the Resolution. Congress adjourned, and we 
hastened to the White House to congratulate the President 
on the event. 

He made one of his happiest speeches. In his own 



peculiar words, he said, "The great job is finished? "I can 
not but congratulate," said he, "all present, myself, the coun- 
try, and the whole world on this great moral victory." 

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 

And now, with an attempt to sketch very briefly some 
of his peculiar personal characteristics, I must close. 

This great Hercules of a man had a heart as kind and 
tender as a woman. Sterner men thought it a weakness. It 
saddened him to see others suffer, and he shrunk from inflict- 
ing pain. Let me illustrate his kindness and tenderness by 
one or two incidents. One summer's day, walking along the 
shaded path leading from the Executive-mansion to the 
War-office, I saw the tall, awkward form of the President 
seated on the grass under a tree. A wounded soldier, seek- 
ing back- pay and a pension, had met the President, and 
having recognized him, asked his counsel. Lincoln sat 
down, examined the papers of the soldier, and told him 
what to do, sent him to the proper Bureau with a note, 
which secured prompt attention. 

After the terribly destructive battles between Grant and 
Lee in the Wilderness of Virginia, after days of dreadful 
slaughter, the lines of ambulances, conveying the wounded 
from the steamers on the Potomac to the great field hospi- 
tals on the heights around Washington, would be continu- 
ous, — one unbroken line from the wharf to the hospital. 
At such a time, I have seen the President in his carriage, 
driving slowly along the line, and he looked like one who 
had lost the dearest members of his own family. On one 
such occasion, meeting me, he stopped and said, "I can not 
bear this ; this suffering, this loss of life — is dreadful." 

I recalled to him a line from a letter he had years before 
written to a friend whose great sorrow he had sought to con- 
sole. Reminding him of the incident, I asked him, "Do you 
remember writing to your suffering friend these words : 

"And tliis too shall pass away, 
Never fear. Victory will comer 






33 

In all his State papers and speeches during these years 
of strife and passion, there can be found no words of bitter- 
ness, no denunciation. When others railed, he railed not 
again. He was always dignified, magnanimous, patient, con- 
siderate, manly, and true. His duty was ever performed 
"with malice toward none, with charity for all," and with 
"firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right." 

NEVER A DEMAG< »GT E. 

Lincoln was never a demagogue. He respected and 
loved the people, but never flattered them. Xo man ever 
heard him allude to his humble life and manual labor, in a 
way to obtain votes. None knew better than he, that split- 
ting rails did not qualify a man for public duties. lie real- 
ized painfully the defects of his education, and labored 
diligently and successfully to supply his deficiencies. 

HIS convers vtion. 
He had no equal as a talker in social life. His conver- 
sation was fascinating and attractive. He was full of wit, 
humor, and anecdote, and at the same time, original, sug- 
gestive, and instructive. There was in his character a sin- 
gular mingling of mirthfulness and melancholy. While his 
sense of the ludicrous was keen, and his fun and mirth were 
exuberent, and sometimes almost irrepressible; his conver- 
sation sparkling with jest, story, and anecdote and in droll 
description, he would pass suddenly to another mood, and 
become sad and pathetic — a melancholy expression of his 
homely face would show that he was "a man of sorrows ami 
acquainted with grief." 

ins STORIES. 

The newspapers in America have always been full of 
Lincoln's stories and anecdotes, some true and many fabu- 
lous. 

He always had a story ready, and if not, he could im- 
provise one just fitted for the occasion. The following may, 
I think, be said to have been adapted : 



\ 



34 

An Atlantic port, in one of the British provinces, was,, 
during the war, a great resort and refuge for blockade-run- 
ners, and a large contraband trade was said to have been 
carried on from that port with the Confederates. Late in 
the summer of 1864, while the election of president was 
pending, Lincoln being a candidate, the Governor- General 
of that province, with some of the principal officers, visited 
Washington, and called to pay their respects to the execu- 
tive. Mr. Lincoln had been very much annoyed by the 
failure of these officials to enforce very strictly the rules of 
neutrality, but he treated his guests with great courtesy. 
After a pleasant interview, the Governor, alluding to the 
approaching presidential election, said, jokingly, but with a 
grain of sarcasm, "I understand, Mr. President, everybody 
votes in this country. If we remain until November, can 
we vote?" 

"You remind me," replied the President, "of a country- 
man of yours, a green emigrant from Ireland. Pat arrived 
in New York on election-day, and was, perhaps, as eager as 
Your Excellency to vote, and to vote early and late and 
often. So, upon his landing at Castle Garden, he hastened 
to the nearest voting place, and as he approached, the judge 
who received the ballots, inquired, 'who do you want to yote 
for? on which side are you?' Poor Pat was embarrassed, 
he did not know who were the candidates. He stopped, 
scratched his head, then, with the readiness of his country- 
men, he said: 

"I am foment the Government, anyhow. Tell me, if 
your Honor plases, which is the rebellion side, and I '11 tell 
you how I want to vote. In Ould Ireland, I was always on 
the rebellion side, and, by Saint Patrick, I '11 stick to that 
same in America.' 

"Your Excellency," said Mr. Lincoln, "would, I should 
think, not be at all at a loss on which side to vote?" 

THE BOOKS HE READ. 
The two books he read most were the Bible and Shake- 



3d 

speare. With them he was familiar, reading and quoting 

from them constantly. Next to Shakespeare, among the 
poets, was Hums, with whom he had a hearty sympathy, 
and upon whose poetry he wrote a lecture. He was 
extremely fond of ballads, and of simple, sad, and plain- 
tive music. 

I called one day at the White House, to introduce two 
officers of the Union arm)-, both Swedes. Immediately he 
began and repeated from memory, to the delight of his 
visitors, a long ballad, descriptive of Norwegian scenery, a 
Norse legend, and the adventures of an old Viking among 
the fiords of the North. 

He said he had read the poem in a newspaper, and the 
visit of these Swedes recalled it to his memory. 

On the last Sunday of his life, as he was sailing up the 
Potomac, returning to Washington from his visit to Rich- 
mond, he read aloud main- extracts from Macbeth, and 
among others, the following, and with a tone and accent so 
impressive that, after his death, it was vividly recalled by 
those who heard him: 

"Duncan is in his grave; 
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well; 
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, 
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, 
Can touch him further!" 

After his assassination, those friends could not fail to 
recall this passage from the same play. 

"This Duncan 
I lath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against 
The deep damnation of his taking- off. " 

HIS RELIGION. 

It is strange that any reader of Lincoln's speeches and 
writings should have had the hardihood to charge him with 
infidelity, but the charge having been repeatedly made, I 
reply, in the light of facts accessible to all, that no more 



36 

reverent christian (not excepting Washington) ever filled the 
chair of President. Declarations of his trust in God, his 
faith in the efficacy of prayer, pervade his speeches and 
writings. From the time he left Springfield, to his death, 
he not only himself continually prayed for Divine assistance, 
but never failed to ask the prayers of others for himself and 
his country. 

His reply to the negroes of Baltimore, who, in 1864, 
presented him with a beautiful Bible, as an expression of 
their love and gratitude, ought to have silenced all who have 
made such charges. After thanking them, he said, " This 
great book is the best gift God has given to man. All the 
good from the Saviour of the world is communicated through 
this book." 

When a member of Congress, knowing his religious 
character, asked him "why he did not join some church?" 
Mr. Lincoln replied, "Because I found difficulty, without 
mental reservation, in giving my assent to their long and 
complicated confessions of faith. When any church will 
inscribe over its altar the Saviour's condensed statement of 
law and gospel, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and 
thy neighbor as thyself,' that church will I join with all my 
heart." 

WHAT HE ACCOMPLISHED. 

Let us try to sum up in part what he accomplished. 

When he assumed the duties of the executive, he found 
an empty treasury, the National credit gone, the little 
nucleus of an army and navy scattered and disarmed, the 
officers, who had not deserted to the rebels, strangers ; the 
party which elected him in a minority (he having -been 
elected only because his opponents were divided between 
Douglas, Breckenridge, and Everett), the old Democratic 
party, which had ruled most of the time for half a century, 
hostile, and even that part of it in the North, from long 
association, in sympathy with the insurgents; his own party 



37 

made up of discordant elements, and neither he nor his 
l>art\- had acquired prestige and the confidence of the peo- 
ple. It is the exact truth to say that when he entered the 
White House he was the object of personal prejudice to a 
majority of the American people, and of contempt to a 
powerful minority. He entered upon his task of restoring 
the integrity of a broken Union, without sympathy from 
any of the great powers of Western Europe. Those which 
were not hostile, manifested a cold neutrality, exhibiting 
toward him and his government no cordial good- will, nor 
extending any moral aid. Yet, in spite of all, he crushed 
the most stupendous rebellion, supported by armies more- 
vast, by resources greater, and an organization more per- 
fect than ever before undertook the dismemberment of a 
nation. He united and held together, against contending 
factions, his own party, and strengthened it by securing the 
confidence and winning the support of the best part of all 
parties. He composed the quarrels of rival generals; and 
at length, won the respect and confidence and sympathy of 
all nations and peoples. He was reelected, almost by accla- 
mation, and after a series of brilliant victories, he annihilated 
all armed opposition. He led the people, step by step, to 
emancipation, and saw his work crowned by an amendment 
of the Constitution, eradicating and prohibiting slavery for- 
ever throughout the Republic. 

Such is a brief and imperfect summary of his achieve- 
ments during the last five years of his life. And this good 
man, when the hour of victory came, made it not the hour 
of vengeance, but of forgiveness and reconciliation. 

These five years of incessant labor and fearful responsi- 
bility told even upon his strength and vigor. He left Illinois 
for the Capital with a frame of iron and nerves of steel. 
His old friends who had known him as a man who did not 
know what illness was ; who had seen him on the prairies 
before the Illinois courts, full of life, genial, and sparkling 
with fun; now saw the wrinkles on his forehead deepened 
into furrows — the laugh of the old days lost its heartiness; 



38 

anxiety, responsibility, care, and hard work wore upon him, 
and his nerves of steel, at times, became irritable. He had 
had no respite, had taken no holidays. When others fled 
away from the dust and heat of the Capital, he stayed. He 
would not leave the helm until all danger was past, and the 
good ship of state had made her port. 

I will not dwell upon the unutterable sorrow of the 
American people at his shocking death. But I desire to 
express here, in this great City of this grand Empire, the 
sensibility with which the people of the United States 
received, at his death, the sympathy of the English-speak- 
ing race. 

That sympathy was most eloquently expressed by all. 
It came from Windsor Castle to the White House; from 
England's widowed Queen to the stricken and distracted 
widow at Washington. From Parliament to Congress, from 
the people of all this magnificent Empire, as it stretches 
round the world. From England to India, from Canada to 
Australia, came words of deep feeling, and they were 
received by the American people, in their sore bereave- 
ment, as the expression of a kindred race. 

I can not forbear referring in particular to the words 
spoken in Parliament on that occasion by Lords Russell find 
Derby, and, especially, by that great and picturesque leader, 
so lately passed away, Lord Beaconsfield. After a discrimi- 
nating eulogy upon the late President, and the expression of 
profound sympathy, he said : 

"Nor is it possible for the people of England, at such a 
moment, to forget that he sprang from the same father-land 
and spake the same mother-tongue." 

God grant that, in all the unknown future, nothing may 
ever disturb the friendly feeling and respect which each 
nation entertains for the other. May there never be another 
quarrel in the family. 



The Presiding Officer, at the conclusion called upon Mr. 
F. ('■. I'ii vy, M.A.. who, speaking of the sympathy which existed 
between the mother country and the great American nation, attri- 
buted it in some degree to the influence of the interchange of the 
literature of the two countries, and showed that that influence, 
though of a comparatively recent date, was daily becoming more 
widely and deeply felt, and would continue to grow. He spoke 
in sympathetic terms of the admiration borne in this country for 
the character and work of the lamented Lincoln, and of the in- 
tense earnestness with which the operative (lasses in this country 
espoused the cause of the North during the great war. Though 
that earnestness was undoubtedly, in some measure, due to the sad 
effects which the paralysis of the cotton industry produced in the 
great manufacturing districts, he knew, from personal observation 
and experience during that trying time, that it was also due to the 
inherent love of liberty, deep-seated in the heart of England, and 
ever ready to succor the oppressed of all nations and to help those 
who were fighting for the cause of freedom. 

Mr. Tito Pagliardini followed and said: 

Mr. Chaikmax. Ladies, and Gentleman: — Seldom have 1 
listened to a paper that has so deeply interested me. It has given 
us a living portrait of one of the most remarkable individualities of 
re» ent times — a portrait, too, traced by the hand of one who. ha\ 
ing himself taken a prominent part in the great national struggle 
which put an end to slavery, had constant opportunities of seeing 
and studying in every phase of his life the eminent man he has so 
graphically portrayed. And though it has been said that familiarity 
breeds contempt, and that there is no hero for his valet, yet men of 
the Garibaldi and Lincoln type, whose influence on their country 
and mankind at large is chiefly due to moral force, can only gain 
by a closer view of them in their prosaic every-day life. When we 

the gentler feelings of the human heart combined in a promi- 
nent man with a rigid sense of duty and the intellectual power and 
perseverance necessary to fulfil that duty, we not only admire that 
man, but revere and love him. Hence Abraham Lincoln, the pre 
server, as Washington was the founder of the great Union, always, 
1 must confess, Stood higher in my estimation and love than all the 



4 o 

Alexanders, Caesars, and Napoleons who have reddened the pages 
of history with their brilliant exploits. 

Before his time, I was often taunted by my French republican 
friends for showing but scant enthusiasm for "La grande Repub- 
lique Americaine." In answer, I pointed to the huge black spot 
which, though it only covered half, yet extended its moral taint to 
the whole of the otherwise glorious Union. That could not be the 
model land of Liberty where millions of our fellow-creatures were 
born to slavery, to be bought and sold like swine. 

But when the great deliverer arose, humble though his origin, 
as is that of most deliverers, my sentiments toward America 
changed. I hailed him with enthusiasm and stood almost alone 
in my circle, composed chiefly of readers of the conservative and 
semi-conservative press; for, to their shame and ultimate discom- 
fiture, the leading papers almost all took the wrong side, prophesy- 
ing continuous disasters to the anti-slavery party and a consequent 
disruption of the Union. Their grand but specious argument, 
which misled many honest minds, ignorant of the history of the 
several States, was that the South had as much right to fight for 
their liberty as the United States themselves had to fight for their 
independence against England. Liberty, indeed! The liberty to 
perpetuate the curse of slavery ! 

But Americans must not judge of British sentiments by the 
conservative press, which only represents a portion of the public, 
but which, unfortunately, was that which most easily found its way 
across the Atlantic. The real heart of Great Britain was from the 
beginning with the North. Indeed, Lincoln's warmest sympathizers 
were those who suffered most from the direful American civil con- 
test — the cotton-spinners and the whole body of the working classes. 
And as nothing succeeds like success, I am bound to add that in 
the process of time the undaunted determination of the Northern 
States, under a series of alarming defeats, with their best trained 
generals and officers, and their chief arsenals on the side of the 
slave-holders, gradually gained for them and for their great inspirer, 
Abraham Lincoln, the respect and admiration of all parties — and 
this admiration and this respect were vastly increased when, in the 
hour of victory, all cries for vengeance were hushed, and the hand 
of brotherhood was held out to the defeated party by the noble- 
hearted President with the full consent of his victorious country- 
men. 



4i 

And now that what was deemed impossible is an accomplished 
fact, viz.: the abomination of slavery eradicated forever from the 
great American Republic, and Peace and Prosperity restored 
throughout the land, I trust that, in Mr. Arnold's own words, 
"nothing may ever disturb the friendly feeling and respect which 
each of the great Anglo-Saxon Nations entertains for the other." 

Already have they given a striking proof of their advanced 
civilization and friendly feelings, and a noble example to all other 
civilized nations, in the peaceful settlement of the burning Alabama 
question, which, but one generation ago. would most certainly have 
led to an obstinate war. ruinous to both countries. That the deci- 
sion of the neutral body of Arbitrators was impartial and tolerably 
just was proved by its giving at the time entire satisfaction to nei- 
ther party, the whole question being, however, soon after completely 
dropped, leaving no angry feelings behind, as would have done a 
war however successful in the end. May (iod grant that any future 
differences between these two great nations having a common 
origin, a common language, a common literature, and so many in- 
stitutions in common, be settled in the same just, friendly, and 
rational manner. No fratricidal war must or can ever arise between 
them. All their future battles must be fought on the peaceful fields 
of science, literature, and the industrial arts. Victories on these 
fields will benefit both, and the whole human race into the bargain. 

I will now conclude these hasty remarks by proposing a heart) 
vote of thanks to the Hon. foaac N. Arnold for his very valuable 
and interesting paper. 

Which was unanimously adopted. 



42 



NOTE FROM THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BRIGHT: 

No. 132 Piccadilly, London, 
June 28th, '8i. 
Dear Sir: 

I have read with much pleasure your interesting paper on 
President Lincoln. I wish all men could read it, for the life of 
your great President affords much that tends to advance all that 
is good and noble among men. 1 thank you for sending me the 
report of your paper. 

I am, very sincerely yours," 

John Bright. 
Hon. Isaac X. Arnold. 



LETTER FROM MRS. ANNE G. BOTTA : 



Buckingham Palace Hotel, 
June 22<i, 188 1. 
My Dear Mr. Arnold: 

An hour ago I opened the pamphlet you gave me yesterday, 
intending to glance at the contents and lay it aside to read when I 
reached home, but I found myself unable to lay it down until I had 
carefully read every word from first to last. It is certainly the most 
clear, exhaustive, and eloquent tribute to Mr. Lincoln that I have 
ever seen. But the pleasure it has given me is quite equalled by 
the pride I feel in knowing that it was listened to by the London 
Historical Society, to whom it must have been as novel as interest- 
ing. As a good American, I thank you cordially for thus giving to 
the English people so noble a picture of our great President, while 
at the same time, you presented to them in person his able friend 
and coadjutor. 

Very truly yours, 

Anne G. Botta. 



The following account of the meeting is taken from a letter nt 
Moni i ki I >. Conway, to the Cincinnati Commercial: 

1 ,ONDON, J line 18, 1881. 

( )n Thursday evening, an unusually large company of ladies 

and gentlemen gathered in the rooms of the Royal Historical 
Society to listen to a paper on Abraham Lincoln, by Hon. [saa< 
N. Arnold, President of the Chicago Historical Society, author also 
of the "Life of Benedict Arnold.'' who was in no sense his ances- 
tor. * * * 

Mr. Arnold, who was accompanied by Mr. Mathews (author of 
"Getting on in Life") and Mrs. Mathews, was a remarkable figure 
among the blonde and ruddy English people around him. and who 
greeted him with great cordiality. He is a tall, lithe, sinewy sort of 
man. with a brownish complexion, a fine forehead, a quick, penetrat- 
ing eye. and a face whose main lines are not the marks of age or 

< are. but the inscriptions of experience. It was grateful to see such 
a typical western man. so self-poised and dignified, so related to his 
American habitat, and yet so human in his sympathi.es, come to tell 
the English about our martyr President. As he went on. 1 felt that 
the dreary disquisition [referring to a paper which had been read 
previously] which we had been enduring, now added to the pictu- 
resqueness of the situation. It was as if. while we were fumbling 
in the Valley of Dry Bones, picking up now Saladin's skull, next 
I'rban's thigh-bone, suddenly our eyes were (aught by the eye and 
front of a man worth many Saladins, and a Crusader saving races 
instead of destroying them. It is not often that the Royal Ilistori 

< al Society has an opportunity of considering history in the making, 
but the satisfaction with which it availed itself of that given it on 
Thursday, may have the result of multiplying such opportunities. 

Alter a graceful recognition of the debt Americans owe to their 
British ancestors, a debt repaid in giving to the English-speaking 
world Washington and Lincoln. Mr. Arnold stated modestly his long 
acquaintance with the man of whom he was speaking. He knew 
him, somewhat intimately, in private and public life for more than 
twenty years. lb- gave a graphic account of the shooting of Lin 
coin's grandfather by an Indian: Mordecai's shooting the Indian 
through a loop-hole of their cabin, as he (the Indian) was carrying 
off his younger brother Thomas, who lived to become father of the 
President. A good picture in frontier life was drawn in few words, 
and the figure of young Abraham, "his head protected from the 
cold by a cap made of the skin of the coon, fox, or prairie-wolf," 
and with the •'buckskin breeches and hunting-shirt of the pioneer.' 
"He grew up to be a man of majestic stature and herculean strength. 
Had he appeared in England or Normandy some centuries ago, he 
would have been the founder of some baronial family, possible of a 



44 

Royal dynasty. He could have wielded with ease the two-handed 
sword of Guy, or the battle-ax of Richard of the Lion-heart." The 
kindliness and fine feeling of this man, so roughly nurtured, were 
brought out with art by Mr. Arnold, and all present were impressed 
by the pathos of the scene when Lincoln was leaving his neighbors 
to assume the hard duties of his Presidency. * He 

told some touching incidents in the life of Lincoln at Washing- 
ton, and gave an excellent account of his personal characteristics. 
Among other things he related that when a member of Congress 
asked him why he did not join some church, Lincoln replied: "Be- 
cause I found difficulty, without mental reservation, in giving my 
consent to the long and complicated confessions of faith. When 
any church will inscribe over its altar the Saviour's condensed state- 
ment of law and gospel, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor 
as thyself,' that church will 1 join with all my heart." [The substi- 
tution of "gospel" for Christ's word, "prophets," in this story is an 
indication of how new versions are made by other than royal com- 
missions.] This anecdote, like several other things in Mr. Arnold's 
essay, was warmly applauded. The reader showed a good deal of 
feeling when he described Lincoln near the close of his career. 
"He left Illinois for the Capital, with a frame of iron and nerves of 
steel. His old friends who had known him as a man who did not 
know what illness was, who had seen him on the prairies before the 
Illinois courts, full of life, genial, and sparkling with fun, now saw 
wrinkles on his forehead deepened into furrows — the laugh of the 
old days lost its heartiness; anxiety, responsibility, care, and hard 
work wore upon him, and his nerves of steel at times became irri- 
table. He had no respite, had taken no holidays. When others 
fled away from the dust and heat of the Capital, he stayed. He 
would not leave the helm until all danger was past, and the good 
ship of state had made her port." 

When, in conclusion, Mr. Arnold spoke with earnestness of the 
sympathy which came from the English-speaking race at Lincoln's 
death, and of the sympathy which "came from Windsor Castle to 
the White House," it is probable that his words carried suggestions 
which he had not thought of. * * * 



45 



NOTE FROM ROBERT T. LINCOLN: 

War Department, Washington, 

Aug-. 20, 1 88 1. 
My Dear Mr. Arnold: 

Please accept my thanks for the copy of your 
address before the Royal Historical Society, which I have 
read carefully and with the greatest pleasure. 

1 tell you sincerely that I have never seen anything 
of the character so gratifying to myself and so complete. 
General R. S. Drum, our adjutant - general, has also read 
your lecture. lie is a very warm friend of my father, and 
is very anxious to have a copy for preservation. 

I will be very much obliged if you can send one, 
cither directly to him or to me for him, as I wish to keep 
the copy I now have for myself. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Robert T. Lincoln. 
l [on. I. X. Arnold, 

Chicasro. 



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